Something worth fighting for
by AKissAndAGunshot
Summary: Sometimes, you gotta ask yourself why you should get up. Sometimes, the answer is obvious.


/storyteller: well, this is how I imagined HL2:E3... or part of it, anyway. I came up with it after a three day marathon playing through the entire series from the original 'half-life' through to episode 2.

Hmm, that was awesome. I need to do that again.

Edit: are the strider guns that fire those huge blue blasts called singularity cannons? I remember hearing them called that...

X-X-X

Half-Life: Something To Fight For

X-X-X

10:48 am, 'Borealis' (wreck)

Gordon primed the last charge, setting the timer. He pressed a button on the side of the detonator.

His HEV suit bleeped. A timer appeared, and started counting down thirty minutes to the destruction of the Borealis. He stood up, and turned.

There was a faint radio crackle...

Gordon spun, firing his SMG. The soldier behind him fell as bullets pierced his head and torso. Blood and some kind of coolant ran down the navy armour.

He quickly looked out a nearby porthole. Combine soldiers were streaming from dropships, with hunters following and even a strider. There was no way to get out in time.

Gordon pressed a button on the inside of his collar, struggling to work his vocal chords, so badly damaged by Xen's peculiar atmosphere all those years ago.

"Alyx..." he rasped, his voice failing.

Her sweet voice came in over his suit's radio. "Gordon! You're... talking?" She said incredulously.

He coughed. "Alyx, go back without me. The Combine have landed troops on this side of the ship. I... I won't be able to get out in time for a safe take-off. You'll have to leave me here."

"Gordon, I can't just leave you to die..."

"Go!" He almost yelled, although his damaged trachea turned it into more of a growl.

"I... but..." she stopped. "Good... goodbye, Gordon..."

From across the huge freighter, he heard the sound of helicopter blades whirling. He smiled to himself, knowing that he had secured the important things.

'Alright, you Combine scum, let's play a dangerous game,' he thought grimly, slamming the bolt on his SMG back. He took aim through the porthole at the soldiers, who had already started cutting their way into the hull.

The rifle-grenade abruptly ended their work in the hull, but the damage was already done. Before he ducked back into the ship, he saw combine soldiers climbing into a substantial hole in the ship.

He loaded his .357 magnum, and stood up. He was determined to find a way out of this hellhole. He raced down the corridor.

A combine shotgunner swung around the corner. Gordon's heart jumped, but he managed to bring up the revolver faster than the soldier could pump the shotgun.

With a resounding boom, blood and bone fragments sprayed in a torrent from the hole in the back of the shotgunner's head. Gordon pulled the hammer back and kept running.

A loud 'woop' sounded. Gordon threw himself forward just in time.

The entire corridor behind him exploded under the blast of a strider's singularity cannon. Gordon reacted on pure spinal reflex. Unslinging the gravity gun with a smooth motion, he caught a large chunk of debris in its eldritch glowing field. He then aimed the projectile through the gaping hole.

Half a ton of ice and steel slammed into the strider's carapace. It stumbled, leaking a lilac purple liquid and hooting furiously, before finally collapsing.

Gordon ducked back as several hunters fired at him, the fletchettes impaling themselves into the wall behind him.

'Bleep: 20:00 remaining', droned the HEV suit's voice. Gordon cocked his shotgun.

The leading hunter charged around the corner, swaying from the sudden turn. Gordon took his chance. After discharging both barrels of the shotgun into the hunter's 'face', he pulled out his favorite weapon of them all.

The crowbar smashed the hunter's glassy eye. Bizzare greyish-khaki blood flowed freely, and the alien stumbled, before collapsing to the floor and dying. Gordon took off again, before more of them found their way in.

X-X-X

Gordon peeked around the metal door-frame.

Around twenty combine soldiers were standing patrol outside, waiting for their comrades to return.

Gordon smiled grimly. The other soldiers wouldn't be leaving the ship anytime soon.

'Bleep: 02:00 remaining. Clear the blast zone,' the mechanical voice whispered.

Gordon aimed his pulse assault rifle.

Two well-aimed bursts cut down the guards nearest to the door, while a grenade killed several others. Gordon ducked behind some scattered barrels as the seven remaining soldiers opened fire.

The small but prolific SMG rounds pattered across the barrels. Gordon kept his head down.

'Bleep: 01:00 remaining.' Damn. No time for ducking.

Gordon primed the pulse rifle's energy ball. During the briefest lull in the enemy fire, he jumped up from behind his cover.

The deadly, crackling sphere slammed into the two soldiers on the left. Gordon climbed over the barrels, firing madly.

A shotgunner had gotten behind him. Both barrels spat flame.

'Warning: severe hydrostatic shock detected. Vital signs CRITICAL.'

Alyx had been monitoring his vitals from the outbound chopper. "NO! GORDON!" She yelled, her voice distorted by the radio.

Gordon's assault rifle abruptly ended the shotgunner's military career. "I..." he coughed, and a faint trace of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. "I... I love you, Alyx..." he rasped. His health monitor was displaying a cheerful 19.

Before she could reply, however, a pulse rifle round smashed into his suit's collar, destroying both the radio and vital sign transmitter. He cursed, and cut down the last soldier with a hail of bullets.

'10'

'9'

'8'

'7'

Gordon's head snapped up. Apparently there really was no rest for the wicked.

'5'

'4'

He unslung the gravity gun. Grabbing a hefty sheet of metal, he aimed it towards the ship.

'1'

'Detonated...'

As hellish flames erupted from the wreck, he pulled the trigger. The sheet of metal flew into the oncoming shock wave, weakening it ever so slightly.

Then the overpressure and debris hit him. The world went dark.

X-X-X

3:20 pm, former wreck of the 'Borealis'

Gordon opened his eyes.

It didn't seem to make a difference. The world was completely dark. Just about every part if his body was searing with pain.

He couldn't move his arms... or his legs. He struggled uselessly. They seemed to be weighted with lead.

'Some afterlife,' he thought. If this was the afterlife it was DEFINITELY hell. There was no way he could hurt so much and be in heaven.

There was a faint beep. He started. Words flashed across his vision:

POWER ON

LOADING BIOS

LOADING SYSTEM

Welcome to the Hazardous Environment Suit Mk V

Reboot sequence complete. The time is now 3:21 pm.

External armor at 18% integrity

Diagnostic sensors at 39% integrity

Suit power reserve at ZERO

Auxiliary power system DAMAGED: 45% capacity

Suit communications OFFLINE

Suit flashlight OFFLINE

Motion servos DAMAGED: 68% of normal strength increase

Suit automedical system DAMAGED: 79% normal wound stabilization

Servo motors ONLINE. The suit is now functional.

Run medical diagnostic on user? Y/N

"Yes," Gordon wearily croaked.

User has received injuries consisting of:

Severe kinetic trauma to all body parts

Severe hydrostatic trauma to back left shoulder

19 Severe bullet wounds to extremities

75 major and minor lacerations

2 Cracked long bones in right leg

Multiple cracked wrist bones in right arm

2 Shattered finger bones in right hand

8 cracked ribs

1 major piercing injury in the right shoulder

Severe internal and external bleeding with a high risk of circulatory shock

Advice: seek professional medical assistance IMMEDIATELY

Activate automedical system? Y/N

Gordon stared. He had been using the suit for so long that be had forgotten that such systems were even voluntary.

"Yes," he managed again.

He felt a familiar faint prick in the inside of his elbow, and the relaxing numbness of the morphine injections.

His health monitor reappeared. A red '4' glowed.

Suddenly, a wave of dizziness came over Gordon. His health monitor dropped to 3. 'Bleeding stabilizing now... stabilized,' droned the suit's voice.

Gordon brought his arms up, the weight of the inert HEV suit no longer pinning him down. He pushed the heavy sheet of steel aside, blinking in the sudden arctic sunlight.

Shaking slightly, he got to his feet. His guns seemed to have been blasted away in the explosion, with the notable exception of the weighty gravity gun... and his oldest friend.

He picked up the crowbar. Despite its previous state of being wedged under a large unidentifiable engine component, it was not even bent.

Gordon gave thanks for small mercies, and looked down at himself. He realized what the suit had meant by 'major piercing injury': a spear-like shard of metal was protruding from his right shoulder.

Gritting his teeth, he grabbed hold of the shard and yanked. There was a horrible sucking noise as it slid out, and blood splashed over the snow.

'Warning: severe bleeding detected,' quipped the suit.

Gordon fell to his knees, and then collapsed, gasping from the pain. His health meter displayed a very vindicating number 1.

X-X-X

Gordon lay there for quite some time.

'Why should I get up?' He asked himself apathetically. The pain had crept back around the edges of the morphine. While Gordon was about as drugged as a person can get before their bloodstream is too diluted to function, some nerves had to remain functional to allow basic motor functions, like walking.

He felt extremely sleepy. Despite the suit's best efforts, he was succumbing to hypovolemic shock and sepsis. If he closed his eyes, he knew, he would never open them again.

'Warning: severe cardiac dysrythmia detected. Deploying automatic defibrillator.'

An electrical jolt hit him in the chest like a strong man's fist. It did no good, however.

His vitality meter, which had been flickering between one and zero, finally made a choice. A flat-lined cardiograph appeared in the corner of his heads-up display as his heart stopped. A faint, continuous 'eeeeeeeeeee' sounded. Gordon's vision began to darken, and the pain vanished. He felt faintly warm.

'Do I have any regrets?' He thought, his consciousness fading. 'Well, maybe Black Mesa...'

Lost in memories of the past, he suddenly came across a recent one... one which he hadn't expected.

'NO! GORDON!'

He remembered her voice, the icy pain which had felt like a dagger through his heart just from hearing her in such a state...

He couldn't let her go through that again!

'Bleep!'

'Bleep!'

'Bleep... bleep... bleep...'

'User heart rate stable: disabling audio cardiograph.'

The pain hit him like a rocket at escape speed, but he managed not to pass out.

Gordon picked himself up off the snow, a grim determination setting in. The vitality meter read '3' again, but he would find something to keep him going, or limp back to White Forest Base leaving a dripping trail of blood, bone shards and morphine if necessary.

X-X-X

5:52 pm, white forest rebel base

The helicopter descended, landing smoothly on the helipad. Barney and Dr. Kleiner were waiting.

Alyx stumbled out, her face streaked with tears. When her father had died, Gordon had been there to comfort her, but now Gordon was dead, and she had no-one. Worse yet, the last words he had said had been the words she had been aching to hear from him since before the uprising.

And she hadn't had time to answer.

"Alyx! Where's Gordon?" Said Dr. Kleiner, in his usual unobservant way.

"Yeah, Alyx, what... happened...?" Barney's voice trailed off as he realized why she must have been crying.

Alyx took a moment to regain her composure. "He stayed behind. The Combine landed and he couldn't get out. He fought them off to give me time to escape." Her voice was mechanical. "He's probably dead."

"Oh... oh my..." was all that Dr. Kleiner could say.

"Humph!" Came a voice from the hangar doors. It was, unsurprisingly, Magnusson. "If you didn't see him die, then he is missing in action, not dead."

For once, they had all had enough of Magnusson's pedantics. "Give it a bloody rest, Doc," was Barney's comment, while the others merely glared.

Alyx walked out of the hangar, tears still streaming from her eyes.

X-X-X

1:31 am, 15 miles north of white forest rebel base

Gordon aimed carefully; this was his last shot. He pulled the trigger.

A glowing orange rod satisfyingly nailed the head of the rear guard, a Combine elite, to the tree beside him. Gordon noted with satisfaction that the bolt had even smashed through the soldier's transporter; the other soldiers wouldn't even know he was down.

Now for the dangerous bit.

Gordon pulled out a grenade. Yanking the pin out in one smooth motion, he wedged it between two rocks, the lever still held.

He hefted the gravity gun. Aiming carefully, so as not to grab one of the rocks instead, he pulled the grenade into the yellow field. He now had 3.5 seconds to throw it.

The soldiers yelped in surprise as the grenade landed in their midst, but the radio crackle was soon drowned out by the boom of the grenade.

Gordon quickly made his way down to the soldier's corpses. Despite the darkness, he found just what he was looking for - a medi-vial. He slammed it into his suit's intake port.

He grimaced as bone shards re-acquainted with each other and torn muscles met up with their much-missed ligaments, but he was still supremely thankful. He watched his vitality meter climb by a full 15 points, resting at 18. Not in any condition for a marathon, but better than 4, which more or less meant 'if you do not see a doctor, you will die as soon as you step out of the suit'.

After the green liquid had worked its magic, he stood up. Shouldering the gravity gun, he set off into the darkness.

X-X-X

5:03 am, white forest rebel base

"I can't believe he's dead, Jim. I mean, he and miss Vance destroyed the citadel almost single-handedly. I never though he'd die."

The two rebel watchmen looked out over the snowbound landscape, which was glittering from the pre-dawn glow.

"Yeah, he was a real tough one. I remember when we were pushing for a gateway, back in the city, when he showed up for a few moments and helped us take that gate. He got hammered by an overwatch sniper rifle and just blinked, then grenaded the bastard."

The first one lit a cigarette. "I guess everybody dies, one way or another," he sighed.

The other just pulled out his field glasses and swept the terrain for the hundredth time.

The first rebel tapped Jim on the shoulder. "Hey, man. There's something orange over there near those trees."

"Don't be stupid, Stephen. The Combine don't wear Orange uniforms."

"That... isn't Combine," said Stephen. The figure was quite close now.

"What?" Jim swung the binoculars around. "Holy smokes! It's Gordon Freeman! He's alive!"

X-X-X

5:11 am, white forest rebel base

Gordon had refused immediate medical treatment, opting instead to shoot up another medi-vial. He had previous appointments, which superseded a visit to the doctor.

Dr. Kleiner and Barney were eager to hear how he had escaped, but he waved them off. "I'll tell you later, guys. Is Alyx out on patrol?" He said in that scraping, sandy voice. Alyx was normally up very early and patrolling to relieve boredom.

"Ah, no," said Dr. Kleiner apologetically. "She had a rough night and we hadn't the heart to wake her for duty..."

"I'll be right back," he grated.

X-X-X

5:16 am, white forest rebel base

The door opened softly.

Alyx was curled up on her bed, facing away from the doorway.

Gordon quietly stepped forward and sat on the edge of the bed. For a man wearing a quarter-ton of steel, he was surprisingly silent.

After a moment's hesitation, he tentatively reached over and lightly placed his hand on her shoulder.

She twitched, and he felt her tense.

"Alyx..." his voice trailed off.

She rolled over, her eyes wide. They stared at each other for several seconds.

Then she pulled him down and wrapped her arms around him so tightly that the HEV suit bleeped an unnoticed warning about torso armor integrity.

"I love you too, Gordon," she whispered into his ear.

She pulled back a few inches, gazing into his eyes.

Then she kissed him.

_This_ was something worth fighting for...

X-X-X

/storyteller: well, any good? First ever real romance scene by the way, so please leave advice if it sucks.

Anyway. Please review if you liked it.

Edit: wow! HUGE block of text compared to anything else I've written. 


End file.
